Where I'm Calling From

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1982

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Summary

Background

Story Analysis

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Background

Authorial Context: Raymond Carver

Carver was born in 1938 in Clatskanie, Oregon, and grew up in Yakima, Washington. He became seriously interested in writing while studying at Chico State College in 1958, and he went on to receive his Bachelor of Arts from Humboldt State College in 1963. Carver married Maryann Burk shortly after high school, and the couple had two children in quick succession. To support his family, he worked several odd jobs, unable to fulfill his desire to write. He told the Paris Review in 1983, “[I]t was tough to stay alive and pay bills and put food on the table and at the same time to think of myself as a writer and to learn to write” (Simpson, Mona, and Lewis Buzbee. “Raymond Carver, The Art of Fiction No. 76.” The Paris Review, no. 88, 1983, pp. 192-221). Instead of writing full time, Carver wrote when he could, focusing on short-form works like short stories and poems.

Under the pressure of constant work and feeling that his life wasn’t turning out how he wanted it to, Carver began drinking heavily around the year 1967. Eventually, his alcohol addiction led to difficulties in his personal life and marriage, much like the narrator of “Where I’m Calling From.” The disorder led to the breakup of his marriage and made it even more difficult for him to write. In 1977, he entered a recovery center twice and a hospital once, and in June of that year, he committed himself to sobriety by fully discontinuing his alcohol use. Shortly afterward, Carver met the poet Tess Gallagher, who would become his partner until Carver’s death from lung cancer in 1988. After recovering from his alcohol addiction, Carver flourished creatively, and he worked successfully as a writer, poet, and teacher.

“Where I’m Calling From” is likely inspired by Carver’s real life but not exclusively faithful to it. By the time he published the story in 1982, Carver’s abstinence from alcohol had lasted for five years. He credits his recovery in part to Alcoholics Anonymous and to a recovery center called Duffy’s, which may have inspired the setting of Frank Martin’s facility. In his 1983 Paris Review interview, Carver explains that while many of his stories have autobiographical elements, none are exact retellings of his own life or of stories he heard from other people in recovery. In addition to noting the autobiographical elements of Carver’s writing, critics have drawn attention to his minimalist style and credited him for contributing to the resurgence of the American short story.

Literary Context: Where I’m Calling From: New and Selected Stories

Shortly before his death at age 50 in 1988, Carver published his final collection of short stories, Where I’m Calling From: New and Selected Stories. The collection included seven new stories, but because it also included 30 of his previously published stories dating back to his early career in 1963, the book as a whole was a kind of survey of his writing development for more than two decades. By this time, Carver was widely regarded as having breathed new life into the American short story form. The short story has always been seen as strongly tied to the United States, and the writers of Carver’s generation helped to usher this form into a new era—specifically in the 1970s and 1980s, which saw a significant revival of interest in the American short story.

Carver’s style is particularly suited to the short story form. In the Foreword to his 1988 collection, the author describes himself as “inclined toward brevity and intensity,” both qualities that characterize the stories collected therein. In the titular “Where I’m Calling From,” even the narrator’s syntax fits the description, and the brevity of the story itself a key element; were the narrative to stretch on like in a novel, Carver would not be able to maintain the same elements of ambiguity. A longer narrative would inevitably fill in many missing details about the narrator’s backstory, and the trajectory of his character arc—and his recovery from addiction—would appear more certain (or at least more predictable).

In recent years, Carver’s widow, Tess Gallagher, has attempted to publish original versions of some of his stories. She confirmed suspicions that Carver’s editor, Gordon Lish, had significantly edited the short stories, and Gallagher wanted the original work known to the public. Lish’s edits had been extensive; he “was shown to have changed characters’ names, cut the length of many stories (over 75 percent of the text in two cases), and altered the endings of some stories” (“Raymond Carver.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 29 July 2022). However, Carver’s hallmark themes and style are still understood to be his own genuine work.